In the past it has been customary in low winds to simply attach tar paper to the sheeting of the roof of a house by special nails, but more recently by staples sometimes applied by a pneumatic stapling machine.
Because of the problem of higher winds it has been customary to install the staples through discs of plastic material, or thin metal material to apply pressure on the tar paper over a larger area. With these methods successful results are achieved, except when the wind becomes high. If there is a high wind it is necessary to apply the roofing shingles quickly after placing the tar paper in place and before the wind can blow a section of tar paper away. When winds are high, or expected to be, then it is not practical to tar paper many houses in a row with a tar papering crew in mass production and to follow it up with a roofing shingle crew afterwards. In the meantime all the tar paper would be ripped away by the wind.
My solution to this problem is the application of a string on top of the roofing and held in place by staples applied by a stapler, on which a ball of twine is mounted.
This solution is much superior to the application of long pieces of wooden lath by means of staples, because it is impossible to place roofing shingles over the lath. Roofing shingles can be placed over the string and staple combination without difficulty, but it would be necessary to completely remove the lath before roofing shingles could be put in place. Even while removing the lath, the wind might tear away sections of the tar paper on a high wind day.
I conceive that the twine could be applied over the tar paper in either a straight line for greatest speed or could be applied in a zig-zag configuration for spreading out the load well over the area of the tar paper for minimizing wind-tearing.
An object of this invention is, therefore, to provide a twine mounting assembly, mounted in position for best balance, so that the tool is easy to handle.
It is my concept that the position of best balance is to place the axle for the twine in alignment with that portion of the pneumatic hose that attaches directly to the gun, the problem of the factor that this position is occupied necessarily by an air line being solved by providing a tubular twine axle disposed around the air line so that air line can extend directly through the tubular twine axle, whereby the air hose is attached to the other end of the rigid air line so that the closer end of the air hose is connected to rigid parts of the total assembly which can be called a string stapler as close to that position on the gun that had previously been proven to be the position for attachment for best gun balance in handling the stapling gun and the hose in fast work.
A further object of this invention is to provide an economy by using the tubular twine axle as a rigid air line, rather than having an air line extending through the twine axle. This way makes possible attachment by simple threading, and also makes possible the holding of the twine axle in rigid position such that it will not rotate.
Another object is to provide a twine guide assembly provided with forward and rearward mountings, which latter have openings for receiving the twine axle, the openings having keys and the axle having a key way, so as to rigidly fix the twine guiding assembly in position, so that the eye thereof stays to one side of the gun where the twine is best lead forwardly to a forward holding twine eye which holds the twine in a position for extending directly under the position from which a staple leaves the gun.
A further objective is to provide a simpler forward twine holding eye mounting for use with guns on which staples are mounted from the upper side of a staple magazine, which latter ordinarily extend horizontally and are loaded with staples, either from the top or the bottom. When the stapler magazine or feed is to be loaded from the bottom, then it is an object of this invention to provide a special forward twine holding eye mounting, which is adapted to be moved out of a position of blocking the magazine so that the magazine can be opened for a staple loading operation.
Still another objective is to provide a twine cutter and a twine gripper which I conceive can be combined into one unit.
Yet another objective is to provide a regulatable resistance to rotation of a twine spool around the twine axle, accomplished by a threaded nut applying pressure on one end of the twine spool, while the other end of the twine spool is held from longitudinal movement by a flange on the axle.
Resistance to unrolling of the twine spool is desirable for facilitating the tight stretching of the twine in the area between an applied staple and a stable about to be applied. It is desirable that the amount of tension can be varied to the desires of the workman applying the staples.